Malfunction of Ambu-E valve

Malfunction of an adjustable pressure limit valve.

EDITOR: We report the malfunction of an adjustable pressure limit (APL) valve on a KION (Siemens, SiemensElema AB, Solna, Stockholm, Sweden) anaesthesia workstation which occurred twice. The first time, the malfunction was detected during the pre-use manual check, but not by the automatic self-check. The second time, the malfunction occurred intermittently during ventilation of a patient but it...

Malfunction of adjustable pressure limiting valve

Malfunction of the Expiratory Valve During Spontaneous Ventilation.

The integrity of inspiratory and expiratory unidirectional valves is very important in the normal functioning of an anesthetic circle breathing system. We describe our experience of an emergency manipulation of a ceramic valve disk of a circle breathing system (Dräger Fabius GS, Dräger Medical Inc) that altered its characteristics and led to rebreathing only during spontaneous ventilation.

Malfunction of the Mitral Valve Prosthesis (Cutter-Smeloff)

Three cases of intermittent obstruction of the mitral prosthesis (Cutter-Smeloff) due to ball variance have been reported. The typical findings were marked variation in the arterial pulse and the intensity of the mitral closing sound and intermittent absence of the opening click. The phonocardiography revealed varying intervals from aortic closing sound to the opening click (A2 OC interval). He...

Echocardiographic and phonocardiographic confirmation of suspected caged mitral valve malfunction.

Seven patients studied by echocardiography with and without simultaneous phonocardiography for suspected malfunction of a caged mitral valve prosthesis are presented. In case 1, with inaudible prosthetic clicks, thrombosis of the cage and immobility of the ball were suggested by echocardiographic studies and confirmed at surgery. In case 2, simultaneous echocardiographic and phonocardiographic...